Shilpa Gupta

Born 1976 in Mumbai, Shilpa Gupta is a world-renowned Indian contemporary artist popular for her audio-visual and interactive sculptural installations. She has graduated from the Sir JJ School of Art. Gupta has a keen eye towards how the human mind perceives objects from different perspectives, which is evident in her representations that pay attention to many socio-political concerns.

With a two-decades-long career, Gupta has perfected the art of capturing the beauty of information, its reception and interpretation. Employing peculiar objects like brass labels or stamps, mikes, and diverse routine material, it is her creative way to demonstrate what we usually see every day but miss it for being too common. Gupta manages to turn the act of seeing through the lens of activism and sarcasm.

Gupta has a very minimalistic style in rendering an idea for the laity. Her series 100 Hand-drawn Maps of my Country includes borders drawn in blue on maps from all over the world. The blue on the white in the maps urge the audience to decipher messages of political unrest and the layered history of these nations. Representing international heritage politics and historical development of borders, Gupta makes sure that such silenced problems are illuminated distinctly. Gupta vehemently expresses towards a lot of political issues in her artwork ranging from addressing the issues of women in Kashmir to the political division of India and Pakistan.

Gupta has had her work displayed in multiple solo and group exhibitions all over the world. She is an award-winning artist who has been a recipient of South Asian Visual Artists Collective, Canada's 'International Artist of the Year' award and the Sanskriti Pratishthan Award. Some of her notable workpieces include There is No Border Here, Aar Paar project and Blame. 

Shilpa Gupta lives and works in Mumbai, India.